Different kinds of materials respond differently to electric forces.
In conducting materials such as metals, electric charges flow easily, whereas
in insulating materials such as glass, they can move hardly at all. At
very low temperatures, some materials become superconductors and offer
no resistance to the flow of current. In between these extremes, semiconducting
materials differ greatly in how well they conduct, depending on their exact
composition.
NSES Content Standard B
Physical Science: Interactions of energy and matter Grades 9-12, page 181 In some materials, such as metals, electrons flow easily, whereas in insulating materials such as glass they can hardly flow at all. Semiconducting materials have intermediate behavior. At low temperatures some materials become superconductors and offer no resistance to the flow of electrons. |